


the responsible thing

by vhenans (hangthestars)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dirty Talk, Dragon Age Kink Meme, F/M, Frottage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 20:47:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13725672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hangthestars/pseuds/vhenans
Summary: Kink Meme Fill: After kissing in the Fade, Solas and Trevelyan find themselves holed up in a cave in the Emprise to wait out a blizzard. They get (mostly) naked to huddle for warmth, talk about their feelings, and get off on said feelings.Full prompt text in the notes.





	the responsible thing

**Author's Note:**

> Kink Meme Prompt:  
> https://dragonage-kink.dreamwidth.org/93509.html?thread=365858885  
> Solas and the Inquisitor are separated from the rest of their party—maybe they just went to gather herbs but were caught in bad weather?—and have to look for shelter because they're snowed in or trapped by a storm. Unfortunately the bad weather doesn't seem to want to pass, so they prepare to spend the night and have to do the practical thing—sharing body heat. This is slightly uncomfortable because despite kiss in the Fade, they haven't discussed their feelings for each other. Now they have to, and later find a way to...pass time.
> 
> Bonus points for Solas popping an accidental boner and being mildly horrified.
> 
> CONTENT WARNINGS!  
> This has a Trevelyan Inquisitor with a non-default name. I have this tagged for dirty talk, frottage, and breath play, but the last is more of a precaution; he has his hand on her throat but never actually chokes her, but it seemed like the safe thing to do. It's not enough for an Official AO3 Tag, but here it is.

Inquisitor Trevelyan is from the fucking Free Marches. Whoever invented the Emprise du Lion could choke on a tiny, fancy cake.

Thayet’s problem, really, is that she can’t be idle. They’re between jobs, waiting for a shipment of supplies to come to the camp the next morning so they can stock up and leave this blighted wasteland of snow. Going after another Templar encampment is a loser’s game, and there are only small ones left. Nothing that Cullen’s troops won’t be able to handle. They aren’t prepared to go after dragons, they’re so low on supplies that tackling a rift would be _stupid_. 

No one would blame her if she sat around camp for a day, but she can’t stand boredom, and happily sets out alone to look for some rare stalks of felandaris. She’s forever returning to camp with her pockets stuffed full of plants and rocks and random odds and ends, and it’s an excuse to save herself from appearing lazy.

(It’s been, Maker, almost two years since this all began now? Twenty-two months since the Inquisition began, and Thayet still worries about looking like a spoiled noble with soft hands. That’s her justification, anyway.)

Bull and Dorian are content to let her go — or they want time alone, it’s anybody’s guess — but Solas follows her out like a second thought, jogging to catch up as she leaves camp, a pack slung over his shoulder, just in case they’re stranded.

The sky is blue, blue, blue for as far as they can see it, but the snow can rush in without warning here, and the wind has been unusually high since the morning.

 

It’s a little awkward, if he’s being honest.

Solas is loathe to admit it, but he forgot himself, just for a moment. He can blame the Fade if he likes, and he often does; dreaming is the closest he can manage to being home, and having the Inquisitor there with him during their first weeks in Skyhold, not only observing the Fade but being in _awe_ of it, brought his guard down as easily as stepping on a sandcastle. He could have left well enough alone if she hadn’t been so quick to get so close.

A part of his gut hates the way that Thayet Trevelyan makes him feel. To feel as if he isn’t so alone is _painful_ , the _thought_ that she might understand him — or want to try — is the perpetual feeling of being just out of reach. Of what, it doesn’t matter. It’s enough that he’s reaching out for something he can never truly touch.

Oh, and she’s _beautiful_. Of course she is. Solas has never been attracted to a human before. He’s also never been attracted to someone without magic before, making it more strange. She’s taller and broader and heavier than any elven woman he’s ever been with, and while he finds all of that more becoming than he expected, it’s her face he can’t get out of his mind: the scars on her jaw and mouth (he felt them when he kissed her, soft grooves in the fullness of her lips), her high forehead and dark skin, her _eyes_. He still isn’t sure if they’re truly violet or if it’s a trick of the light, but they’re odd and otherworldly, and they remind him of home.

They haven’t talked about their kiss in the Fade. The Inquisitor has manners, and had taken his apprehension to heart. No one would guess at how he feels for her just by watching them together, and Solas wonders if she’s moved on or forgotten. Regardless, she never pulled away from him, only drawn a line in the sand between them for the sake of his boundaries and dutifully stayed on her side.

So it strikes no one as odd, not even each other, that he accompanies her when she wanders. They spend plenty of time alone, just as she spends time alone with Dorian or Cassandra.

 

The storm clouds sneak into the sky while they’re talking, and they’re at the top of a hill too far from camp when she notices. She looks out at the clouds and takes in the streaks in the near-distance that mean _snow_ , the wind biting at her cheeks. “Tell me we’ll beat that.”

“Unless you’ve learned to fly, Inquisitor, I’m afraid I can do no such thing,” Solas says dryly. He doesn’t enjoy the cold, though he does hate it marginally less than she does. 

“Sacksplash.” Thayet sighs, shoving a stalk of felandaris into her pocket. She only managed to find a couple of sprigs, but she tells herself it’s worth it even if she dies in a blizzard. “The caves on the way back are cleared of Red Templars. I think we need to bunk down and pray it’s over by morning. If we leave late because I wandered off to pick some twigs, Dorian will whine the whole way back to Skyhold.”

“A worse fate than freezing to death, surely.” Solas turns away before she does, gently touching Thayet’s shoulder when he passes her on his way down the hill. “Come, then. Sooner the better.”

Thayet nods, and they make the cold trek to the caves. The snow has started by the time they get to the mouth, and a harsh gust of wind shows them how far into the caves they can expect it to drift. Thankfully, the network of twists and caverns are long and deep enough to completely hide them from the snow and the wind, tiny pieces of fade-touched dawnstone dotting the walls.

They find a small, out-of-the-way cavern where they can feel no breeze, and when the clouds are so thick they start to blot out what little sunlight makes it inside, Solas summons fire to his palm. It’s easier and safer than using a torch, though there are two in Thayet’s bag.

Once the tent is up and their bedrolls set out, they retreat, sealing the canvas as tightly as they can, with only Solas’s fire for any significant light. This isn’t the first time they’ve had to bunk down this way, especially in the Emprise. Thayet hates it every time; she’s restless and sleeps poorly in the cold. It’s easier to sit up and talk than try to sleep sometimes.

“I’m curious, Inquisitor,” Solas says, sitting cross-legged on his bedroll and lazily passing the flame between his hands, letting it curl around his fingers. It’s warm as a campfire, bathing the canvas tent in orange light and deep shadows. “How often have you seen snow, before coming south for the Conclave?”

“Quite a lot, actually.” Thayet is already trying to bundle into her blankets and rubs her sides with her gloved hands. The shadows make her cheekbones sharper, her scars an inky black. “I spent most of my formative years in Ferelden, you know. My parents sent me south for my education. Ferelden gets cold, and I hated it back then, too.”

Solas nods. They’ve spoken of her childhood, here and there, but he doesn’t share his and she’s responded by sharing little of hers. It’s fair. “So I’ve misjudged. I have slightly less sympathy for you now.”

That startles a laugh out of her. “Ass. I’m warm blooded, I’m not even built for freezing rain. If only Corypheus had blown up something in the Free Marches, we could be trekking through winter showers instead of hiding out in this… freezing hellpit of a cave.” She shifts uncomfortably and huddles into herself a little more, resting her cheek on her knee. 

Then she sighs, even groans a little. “This was so stupid. I pay people to find plants for me, I should have stayed at camp. I already feel like an icicle.” She fidgets again.

Solas frowns. It _does_ feel much colder now than it did only an hour or two ago, the snow bringing in a harsh and awful chill. He feels it, sure, but he’s holding fire in his hands and can keep himself warm while he sleeps. It worries him to see her so obviously uncomfortable, and it occurs to him that it might not be safe to let Thayet sleep with only blankets between her and the frigid night.

He could stay up and keep the fire going, but it’s been a long expedition. Dozing off during the day would be worse.

“Inquisitor.” Solas moves in closer and offers his hands, the fire retreating behind them. When she hesitates to unwrap her arms from around herself, he rubs her shoulders instead, pressing the heat closer to her exposed face. “If you return to camp in the morning having turned blue, Dorian and The Iron Bull would have both our heads. I can keep _myself_ warm in my sleep, but I can’t do the same for you.”

Thayet glances up, her cold lips pressed into a line. “So…”

Oh. _Oh_.

“Solas, you really don’t have to,” she says reluctantly, because she knows the implication: it’s cold, and the safest way to stay warm, together, is to huddle in the same bedroll skin-to-skin. It’s basic survival, and she would do it with anyone, but… well, not everyone has kissed her in the Fade and been awkward about it for months afterward. She’s pretty sure she’ll survive alone.

You know. Probably.

“Nonsense. It’s the responsible thing,” he insists, carefully neutral. “I can keep us both warm if we’re closer, and then I’ll conveniently avoid the guilt of letting the Inquisitor, savior of the world, freeze to death in a cave.”

Thayet snorts, but she gives the idea a moment of thought. It’s common sense, and given the choice between shivering in her own blankets or piling them on top of Solas’s and sleeping pressed against a warm body… it’s not even a _real_ choice if she wants to wake up with fingers and toes that work.

“You first, then.” Thayet licks her lips, trying and failing to save them from dryness. “Please.”

Solas nods and moves away again. He isn’t graceful about undressing, and when he turns his back, he tries not to consider where she’s looking, if she’s looking at him at all. He isn’t self-conscious about his body, but to be only feet away from the _Inquisitor_ makes it about more than that. However, when he glances over his shoulder, he finds that Thayet isn’t looking at all, instead pressing her face into her knees.

He uses his clothes to pack his bedroll, adding extra padding on the side of him where Thayet _won’t_ be, and crawls back underneath the blankets in nothing but his smallclothes, and socks. His magic won’t save him from feeling the cold in general, but he uses is to warm his breath, inhaling cold air and making it warm in his lungs. The warmth spreads quickly to his limbs and his hands and feet, and his breath carries hot steam instead of cold vapor.

The Inquisitor reluctantly sheds her clothes while huddled under a blanket, not to hide from him but to keep her time in the colder air as short as possible. Her inhibitions about being mostly naked around him disappear as soon as the air hits her upper arms, and so she’s quick to settle in next to him, her back to his chest and her own blankets and clothes added to the pile. 

Solas rests his hand on her shoulder. When she doesn’t shrink away (and he waits for a couple of seconds to give her extra time to ask him not to), he lets his magic press into his palm and pass between them, and when she exhales, it’s with a sigh of relief as the warmth reaches her chest.

They lapse into a comfortable silence. Her breathing evens out, the rise and fall of the blankets slow. Solas thinks she must be sleeping, and he knows that he should close his eyes and try to drift off as well, but it may be a long time before they get this close again. Under the bulk of the blankets, all he can see of her is the back of her head and the top of her shoulders. She deemed it too much trouble to take her hair down, and he’s never looked so close at her braids before. 

They’re more complicated than he expected, wound up and crossed and meticulously pinned, and it occurs to Solas that he’s never seen her with her hair _down_. He has no idea how long it is, or how thick — and he imagines those careful braids wrapped around his hand, falling apart when he pulls her head back, exposing her throat to—

“Solas.” 

He flinches as if she’s read his thoughts. “Inquisitor?”

“I… want to ask you something,” she says carefully. “You can refuse to answer. And we can forget that I asked at all as soon as we leave this cave.”

Beyond the glow of his hand, the tent is so dark they can barely see the canvas. It feels like a soft blackness, a comforting place that will absorb their secrets into the walls. Solas exhales quietly and breathes, “Anything.”

“I had thought… I thought, perhaps, that after the way you kissed me in the Fade, I would just have to wait for you to come around.” Thayet’s voice is _gentle_ , sad without expecting much. “It’s been a time, with no real change between us, save for a little awkwardness. Selfishly, I would… I want to know if I should consider the matter dropped, and you uninterested. It’s perfectly acceptable if you aren’t.”

Solas blinks in the darkness, surprised. “You’ve been _waiting_ for me? I thought you’d forgotten all about it.” And now he sees that it’s been foolish of him to think that the Inquisitor’s attention span would be so short. He’s thought of his pining as a solitary, singular experience. 

“Hardly. But I wasn’t about to start courting you while you were still unsure that you even wanted me to.” 

With her back to him, Solas can’t read her facial expression, and he desperately wishes he could. He’s seen little of what human nobility considers courtship, even less what a Free Marcher would do with it, but it strikes him some sort of way that that was her intention in the first place. So it hadn’t been just a fling or some secret dalliance she was after. She hadn’t given up because she didn’t _care_.

He hates her then, for offering him something genuine that he can’t possibly keep. Thayet hasn’t been deterred by keeping his distance (currently naked huddling notwithstanding), she hasn’t been distracted from him by other suitors in Skyhold, and despite the rejection she’s been steadfast in her trust and her reliance on him, her mind open and her hand perpetually outstretched.

She could bring this up at any time. Waiting until they’re trapped in a cave together with nothing between them but warm air… it feels like an offering. A seduction, maybe, made up of only the back of her neck and shoulders and the soft sound of her voice. It’s all she needs, it leaves him fantasizing about how her back might feel against his chest.

If lust is some kind of madness, love itself must be far, far worse.

Solas loses himself in thought longer than he realizes, because his ruminating is broken up yet again by her voice. 

“We don’t have to commit to anything today, Solas. Or ever,” she says, her voice even more cautious now. 

When she resettles her weight, he sees why — or _feels_ why, suddenly aware that not only is he _hard_ , but they’re so close that the curve of his erection is brushing over her backside. He’s grateful that she can’t see him flush. How awful she must think he is, letting her open up only to be met with silence _this_ kind of impropriety.

“Talk to me, Solas. Please.”

When Solas shifts to put that sliver of space between them again (incidentally pushing on her shoulder in the process), he hears her pull in a breath and hold it. If he rejects her, right _now_ , he never has to worry about her complicating things again. The Inquisitor will respect him without question, she’ll let it go, maybe even move on to someone else. He’ll be free — or at least, free of her affection for him and the anticipation that she might, maybe, push against him as she’s doing now and remind him of how lonely he is.

But the thought of her with someone else only makes him angrier the more he allows himself to dwell. Thayet has other suitors who would gladly take her attention if she seemed to offer it. Cullen would offer her something earnest, perhaps, and give her something to wait for, leaving her unsatisfied during her long expeditions. Solas would have to watch her go to him, day after day, as she passed through the rotunda to get to Cullen’s tower. If not Cullen, then Blackwall, who already watches her with an open hunger for something — validation or power or sex — and who would fuck her out on the road and leave her walking sideways in the day. Solas can’t stand that either, the thought of following her and knowing that the spring in her step comes from someone else.

“It would be foolish, the two of us,” he finally says, half-hearted. “ _Socially_ , you—-”

“Let me worry about that,” she says, cutting him off in a way that makes him shudder. “If that’s why you hesitate, then don’t.”

Bless her, she’s given him an excuse without knowing it. Letting her make her assumptions, Solas carefully leans in and presses his lips to the back of her shoulder. “I’m still interested,” he murmurs against her skin, moving in until she’s flush against his chest. “I’d like to see your type of courtship, I think.”

When she chuckles, he can feel it. “ _Well_. First I strand you in a blizzard and convince you to get naked, so… surprise, I’ve already started.”

“It’s very effective.” He smiles against her shoulder.

When he moves his hand down to wrap around her waist, Thayet reaches for it, holding his touch against her belly. The heat of magic is still coming off of his skin, pulsing gently with the rhythm of his breath. Maybe it’s the darkness or the cold, but it feels more like relief to hold her than a shame.

Thayet snuggles back against him with a sigh, tugging the blankets tighter around them. “Remind me to kiss you again when my lips aren’t blue,” she says, making it clear that she has no intentions of rolling over. “And please tell me that’s your cock and that you don’t have something tucked into your smalls.”

Solas laughs, pressing the sound to her neck. “That _is_ actually my cock, yes. Does it bother you? I can lean away if it does.”

“Do I seem bothered?” Thayet turns her head to nuzzle him. She’s at the wrong angle to reach for a kiss. Instead she gently guides his hand up to her breast. “I’ve had awful, wicked fantasies about you, you know. Pray tell me that you’ve been pining for me in return, and maybe I’ll let you in on one.”

She’s trying to be the death of him, he realizes, though he’s sure she doesn’t know it. He would have been more comfortable with some reluctance out of her, maybe some fear of what being seen with him would do for her reputation, some personal apprehension about being with an elf. But she provides him no guilt, and he hates her for it. Just a little.

Thayet’s breasts are heavier and softer than he expected. He notes this as he cradles one and traces his finger around her wide nipple. “I think of little more than doing _this_ when you’re near, Your Worship. I should not have kept my affections so private.” He kisses her ear. “I have memorized the lines of your shoulders and the backs of your thighs. I pleasure myself to the thought of your crooked smile and your beautiful eyes glancing up at me.”

He moves his hand from her breast up to her throat, the deep scar around her neck pressed to his palm, the skin soft and new. When Thayet sighs softly and doesn’t protest, he lets his grip tighten a little, his thumb pressing against her jaw. “Is that what you wanted to know?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Let me have you,” he sighs, holding her in place, his breath warm on her ear. “I’ll see to it that you’re wet enough for me before I take you.”

Thayet groans, and he can feel her arm shifting underneath his and hear the quiet rustle of fabric as she pushes at her smallclothes. “No. Not inside of me, not yet.” He can tell the moment that she touches herself by the way her hips twitch and rock forward into her own fingers, rubbing against him in the process. “I _want_ you to. I also want you to _wait_. Tell me you’ll be patient.”

“Tell me what I’m waiting _for_ ,” he counters, openly grinding against the curve of her backside, their clothes still between them. “You’ve been lusting after me, Inquisitor. Tell me how, so I can please you when we return home.”

“I want you more every time I visit you in Skyhold. The smell of paint and old books makes me wet now, even just the thought of them.” Her movement is unplanned, squirming from her attention to her own cunt, and the way she rubs back against him seems to be her body begging him to fuck her. Thayet continues as Solas groans against her shoulder, “I’ve come against my own hand wanting to be taken right there in the rotunda, bent over the table with my trousers around my thighs. I’m loud, Solas, I would moan and taste your name on my tongue until you silenced me, to keep people from realizing that the Inquisitor’s cunt was soaking wet and stretched around your cock.”

“I shouldn’t have made you wait,” Solas says harshly, his breath ragged against her shoulder. “If I’d known how wet and ready you were for me, I would have fucked you the moment you came near me. I would have made you come all over my cock, until you made a mess of my clothes and my table, before using that soft, dripping hole — you can come for me, Inquisitor. At least let me hear how you sound when your fingers are inside of you.”

He reaches for her hand, shuddering when the static of the anchor flares up, and guides her to slip her fingers inside of herself. Thayet wants him to wait before fucking her, and he resolves then not to penetrate her until she begs for it. He encourages her hand, rubbing circles into the back of it, and he’s silent while she _groans_ , letting her noise and the wet sound of her fingers against her cunt be the only sounds in the tent for that moment.

Satisfied that her fingers are deep enough, that she’s rocking her hips enough, Solas reaches for her breasts again and pinches her nipple. He promises himself that the moment he has unfettered access to her, he’ll make a mess of her chest if she allows it. He wants to hold her in both hands and press his mouth to the swell. Her nipples need his tongue, he decides, and her breasts would benefit from some marks from his teeth, such a deep purple that they’re obvious against her dark brown skin. 

“I won’t touch you again until we return to Skyhold.” He says it like a threat. “This won’t satisfy you, Your Worship. You can make yourself come every night on our way home, and you still won’t feel sated until your orgasm is because of _me_.”

Thayet trembles as she comes, her thighs shaking and the cry in her throat pressing into the darkness. Solas impulsively covers her mouth, muffling her moans and her whimpers as she squirms back against him. He groans against her ear and rocks against her ass in earnest, using her as Thayet twitches. They’re both self interested them, straining against each other — even when Thayet calms, her breath ragged against his palm, Solas continues to rut against her until he comes with a grunt, making a mess inside of his smallclothes.

He releases her, letting her pant openly while he catches his breath. In the comfortable quiet, Solas pushes what’s left of his clothes away from himself, using his underthings to wipe away the mess and leaving himself naked, the messy clothes dropped outside of the bedroll.

As soon as he’s finished, Thayet pulls his arm back around her, tucking it under her own so that he can hold her close. She smells like sweat, and she’s _relaxed_ now that her breath is even again. The silence stretches between them, for so long that Solas starts to doze before Thayet breaks it with:

“Don’t forget about this in the morning. Please.”

Solas smiles against the back of her shoulder. “Shhh. I couldn’t.”


End file.
